An international team of researchers led by Ralf Tappert, University of Innsbruck, reconstructed the composition of the Earth's atmosphere of the last 220 million years by analyzing modern and fossil plant resins.

Evolution does not operate with a goal in mind; it does not have foresight. But organisms that have a greater capacity to evolve may fare better in rapidly changing environments. This raises the question: does evolution favor characteristics that increase a species' ability to evolve?

Any textbook will tell you that oxygen is essential for advanced life to evolve. But why did life not explode when oxygen levels rose dramatically 2.1 billion years ago? This is the big question after a Danish/Swedish/French research team, led by University of Southern Denmark, has shown that the oxygen content 2.1 billion years ago was probably the same as when life exploded 500 million years ago.

Much of the hype around BMW with low carbon transportation right now is the to market plans of its i8 plug-in hybrid and i3 electric car, but the automaker is also making steps in greening other parts of its mobility inventory as well. One area in which this is happening is scooters, with news that its new C evolution electric scooter will debut in Europe next year.

The incredible burst of innovation in animals' body plans and habits during the Cambrian explosion, between 540 and 520 million years ago, can be explained by a reasonable uptick in evolutionary rates.

In a twist on "survival of the fittest," researchers have discovered that evolution is driven not by a single beneficial mutation but rather by a group of mutations, including ones called "genetic hitchhikers" that are simply along for the ride.

Thousands of sequences that control genes are active in the developing human limb and may have driven the evolution of the human hand and foot, a comparative genomics study led by Yale School of Medicine researchers has found.

The tiniest bones in the human body – the bones of the middle ear – could provide huge clues about our evolution and the development of modern-day humans, according to a recent study by a team of researchers that include a Texas A&M University anthropologist.

A research team led by Cornell University's Creative Machines Lab has created a computer algorithm that simulates virtual creatures evolving their squishy, muscle-like features in order to teach themselves to walk.

One key way dogs differ from wolves, scientists have discovered, is in their ability to digest starchy foods, indicating that the split between the two species may have come about as dogs adapted to scavenging human leftovers.

It's long been suspected that having a big brain isn't necessarily an evolutionary advantage. Now, scientists have come up with experimental evidence for this view, by breeding a strain of big-brained guppies.

A University of Oregon scientist has made the controversial claim that ancient multicellular fossils long thought to be ancestors of early marine life are in fact land-dwelling lichen or other microbial colonies.